Local Australian Developers Get Their BlackBerry Game On

There was recently the Sydney BlackBerry Got Game Port-A-Thon, which saw Australian gaming developers learn how to port their gaming apps from other operating systems to the new BlackBerry 10 platform.

Developers who missed out on last week’s event can attend a virtual event that will be held this weekend. The All Aboard BlackBerry Port-A-Thon will start on December 14, 2012 and will run for 36 hours.

ADVERTISEMENT

BlackBerry might not be doing exceptionally well in Australia at the moment. However, at BlackBerry Jam Asia I had the opportunity to meet Team Hive, the Australian developer team from Melbourne, Australia.

Team Hive was super enthusiastic for BlackBerry 10. Their innovative app, Hive, is a clever system which allows employees in an organisation to easily access a ridesharing network for taxi trips in order to cut down on costs involved for corporate travel.

Once BlackBerry 10 gets rolling, I don’t see any reason why BlackBerry can’t regain lost ground in the Australian region and rest of Asia Pacific. For more details on the Got Game Port-A-Thon check out the press release below:

Press Release

Sydney, 14 December 2012 – On Wednesday 5th December, Research In Motion (RIM) held the Sydney BlackBerry® Got Game Port-A-Thon which saw Australian gaming developers learn how to port their gaming apps from other operating systems to the new BlackBerry 10 platform. The Sydney BlackBerry Got Game Port-A-Thon is part of a series of live developer events within the Asia Pacific region which will be held during the remainder of December.

BlackBerry technical experts were on hand at the Sydney event to demonstrate to developers how to get their apps up and running on BlackBerry 10 in just one day. Developers were rewarded for completing porting on-site with a BlackBerry PlayBook™ and will receive $100 for every gaming app that is approved for sale in BlackBerry App World™ up to a maximum of 20 apps. Developers also received a BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha device, a prototype device running a beta version of BlackBerry 10, for every Top Arcade, Puzzle and Action game ported on-site. For images from the event, please click here.

Nikhil Suresh, an independent game developer who attended the BlackBerry Got Game Port-A-Thon, said, “BlackBerry 10 is going to be an important platform in 2013, and it was great to hear about potential revenue opportunities and the rewards RIM has in place for developers with the upcoming launch. I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to port my games to BlackBerry 10.”

ADVERTISEMENT

Christopher Saunders, lead for BlackBerry Developer Relations in Australia and New Zealand, commented, “I was really excited by the calibre of apps and ideas put forward by developers on the day. It was great to see developers able to target another platform so easily and take advantage of a new distribution channel. It really is a testament to the power of open libraries and industry standard technology that our engineers around the world have been working so hard to provide.”

Interested software developers are encouraged to reach out to Christopher directly on Twitter via @csaunders_ca, if they are looking for more details on the platform or to find out how to take advantage of all that BlackBerry has to offer.
All Aboard BlackBerry Port-A-Thon event this weekend

Developers who missed out on last week’s event can attend a virtual event that will be held this weekend. The All Aboard BlackBerry Port-A-Thon will start on December 14, 2012 and will run for 36 hours. As it is a virtual event, participants will be able to log in from home, the office or wherever works! Once again, RIM’s team of technical BlackBerry 10 experts will be on hand to help during the Port-A-Thon. For more details, please click here.